Planting for Butterflies

Here are some of the larger, showy butterflies you will see in our area.

I’m going to focus mainly on Monarchs and Milkweed.

Monarchs - Because they are endangered

Milkweed - Because it’s not as widespread as it once was.

And those two facts are related.

But when you plant for Monarchs you will also help all of these butterflies, whose numbers are also declining.

All pollinators are in trouble, Monarchs are the canary in the coal mine.

Not all insects are pests, they are mostly harmless and mostly beneficial, much of our food supply depends on pollinators.

This cartoon was from a Monarch fan page on Facebook.

This Adult Monarch doesn't look anything like his DL photo as a caterpillar.

They don't look alike and they don't eat the same things.

So when planning a butterfly garden you need to consider both:

- Plants that feed caterpillars, host plants.

- Flowers that feed butterflies, nectar plants.

And you need both, because all butterflies start out as caterpillars.

It is also important to plant natives.

Our butterflies and our native plants have co-evolved over eons and depend on each other for their survival.

Our butterflies prefer our native plants, because evolution has hard-wired them that way.

This is a list of host plants for all the butterflies pictured on the previous slide.

Many are “weeds” that you won’t have to plant!

Canada Clearweed (upper left)

It’s in the nettle family, but doesn’t have stingers. Shallow roots, easy to pull up.

I pull most of it, but I leave some for the Commas, Question Marks, and Red Admirals.

The wild Violets that are all over our yards, with white and purple spring blooms, are not invasive.

Violets have grown here for thousands of years, long before we put in turf grass lawns. Violets are the host plant for the Great Spangled Fritillary.

The ugly broadleaf Plantains that come up in our yards, they host the buckeye caterpillar.

White Clover is a nectar source for bees and also a host plant for several butterflies including the Silver Spotted Skipper.

Dill weed, fennel, parsley are host plants for the black swallowtail.

The two most important plants from this list that should be in everyone's garden are Asters and Milkweed.

Milkweed, because it is the only plant that hosts Monarch caterpillars. Asters, because they host 112 different caterpillars, the most of any plant. And both are important nectar sources.

Milkweed flowers in summer, Asters in fall.

Trees are also important hosts, they actually support more butterfly species than plants. Native Oaks support 557 different moth and butterfly species.

This is where things get complicated. Because there are so many choices.

Some principles to help guide your flower choices.

1. Plant Natives

2. Butterflies need nectar throughout their lifetime so you need continuous blooms in your garden.

3. Nectar sources should be those that thrive in full sun.

Butterflies are cold-blooded, they like to open their wings and soak up the sun while feeding. Garden should be placed where it receives full sun from mid-morn to mid-afternoon.

4. Plant type and color is important

Butterflies are attracted to purple, orange, red, pink, yellow and blue flowers.

They prefer flat-topped or clustered blooms with short flower tubes.

Favorite Flat-topped: Coneflower, Zinnias and Gaillardia.

Favorite Clustered: Butterfly weed, Common Milkweed and Sedum

5. Provide a smorgasbord of different flowers.

Different butterflies have different preference, the more variety you have the more butterflies you will attract and feed.

6. Divvy up your flowers by season.

10, 40, 50 percent for spring, summer and fall.

The butterfly population is lowest in spring.

It gradually builds during summer, then explodes in late summer and early fall.

Fall nectar is also important because butterflies need additional energy to prepare for winter and for migration.

There are many choices for summer and fall nectar.

I chose these plants for my garden because

1. They are natives that appear on everybody's Top 10 butterfly plant list.

2. They are full sun, drought tolerant, disease and pest resistant.

3. They are relatively easy to find.

You won't find many native plants at the big box stores.

The problem I have with big retailers is I don't trust that they haven't been treated. They are not required to label plants if they've been treated with a pesticide.

Neonics are water soluble, they are absorbed into every part of a plant and persist years. So the entire treated plant becomes a poisonous vector for years.

There are organic nurseries that specialize in native plants: Prairie Moon Nursery

Otherwise buy your plants from a trusted local nursery.

Zinnias are annuals than bloom summer through fall.

Butterflies love Zinnias and they are perfect for filling in bare spots in your perennial garden.

However, not all Zinnias are created equal.

Avoid double flowered varieties (upper left). They are mostly petals, with few flower tubes, many do not produce any nectar.

"Cut and Come Again" (bottom left) is an heirloom single flower Zinnia that produces a lot of nectar.

"Jazzy" and “Whirlygig” are semi-double varieties.

Semi-doubles combine the best of both. They have several rows of petals plus a large nectar producing center.

I understand why people are hesitant to plant natives. Some think natives are “weeds” that spread everywhere. And truthfully, some do spread aggressively!

But there are well behaved varieties:

Showy Goldenrod

Showy Milkweed

Otherwise, Natives take work.

Coneflower is a prolific re-seeder:

Must dead head spent flowers before they drop seed.

Bee Balm spreads aggressively by stolons:

Can be contained with a physical barrier (lawn edging).

Common Milkweed spreads by rhizomes:

Control with persistent pruning of new growth.

Blue Sage, Joe Pye Weed and Goldenrod are important fall nectar sources, but some varieties can grow 7 feet tall.

These taller fall natives need a spring haircut to reduce fall height and prevent flopping. Remove the top half of these plants during first half of May.

Without milkweed there are no Monarchs. Milkweed is their only host plant.

There are 17 species of perennial milkweed native to Missouri. Monarchs will lay eggs on all of them. Pictured here are six that you're most likely to see.

A female Monarch can lay up to 300 eggs, but she will only lay one egg per plant. And she will not lay on plants close to each other. So, space milkweed plantings as far apart as possible.

Monarchs prefer to lay on young plants, or fresh growth on older plants. Cutting back common milkweed stimulates new growth. At mid season after the blooms have faded, trim off the top third to give an extra generation of monarchs on the same plants.

Need to consider height when deciding where to plant. Common and showy milkweed will grow to 6 feet tall.

All Milkweed species prefer full sun. Butterfly weed will tolerate some shade.

All are drought tolerant except Swamp milkweed which has shallow roots. Other than swamp, milkweed doesn’t need watering after the first year, because of their deep taproot (6 feet).

Milkweed is potentially poisonous to grazing animals. It is rare because livestock generally avoid milkweed due to its very bitter taste. Occasional browsing on milkweed is not harmful.

Monarch caterpillars eat milkweed and accumulate the toxins as a defense mechanism.

Whorled milkweed is the most toxic of all Missouri natives. In addition to the cardiac glycosides found in all other milkweed. it also contains a neurotoxin (galitoxin). Galitoxin can cause loss of coordination, seizures, and even respiratory arrest. Do not plant whorled milkweed!

Butterfly weed has the lowest concentration of toxins, while Tropical milkweeds have the highest. The toxins in TMs are 200 times that of butterfly weed.

Mexican Milkweed is native to Southern Mexico and Central and South America.

Balloon Milkweed is native to South Africa.

Neither survive frost, so here in our Zone they are annuals.

It's perfectly fine to plant Tropical milkweed in our zone, as long as you let them die back in fall. Do not over-winter them inside.

Planting a non-native annual, doesn't solve the long term problem of milkweed decline here. The best use of Tropicals is as a temporary bridge, until your perennials get established.

This is a list of the 17 perennials milkweeds native to Missouri. Again, don’t plant whorled milkweed.

Butterfly weed is a good starter milkweed.

•It is native.

•It does not spread.

•It is the least toxic milkweed.

•It blooms all summer long and feeds many pollinators.

•I’ve found just as many cats on butterfly weed in my front yard as the common milkweed in my back yard.

So, if you only have room for one, plant butterfly weed.

Milkweed flowers in large clusters that have an intoxicating scent. They attract and feed many pollinators.

Here are just a few of the many that visited my butterfly garden last year:

•Great Spangled Fritillary (host plant is violets)

•Zebra swallowtail (host is Paw paw tree)

•Hummingbird moth (host is honeysuckle, dogbane, cherry and plum trees.

•Silvery checkerspot (hosts plants are Asters, Rudbeckia)

•Painted Lady (host plants are Asters)

•Common Buckeye (host plant is plantains)

•Black swallowtail (hosts plants are Dill, Fennel, Parsley)

•Tiger swallowtail (hosted by Tulip tree/poplar)

But it's not just butterflies, a common milkweed colony teems with insect life. Milkweed provides a microhabitat for a multitude of insects. Dozens of bee species, 132 different beetle species. and 45 bug species can be found within a Milkweed colony.

In 2020 the US Fish and Wildlife service announced that although the Monarch qualifies for the endangered species list, there were 160 others on the pending list that are worse off, so they were not added.

There are 3 Monarch populations in the US

1. Eastern Monarchs (those living east of the Rockies) have declined by 88% over the past 25 years.

2. The Western Monarch (west of the Rockies) have declined by 99%. On the brink of extinction.

3. The third is a non-migrating population in Southern Florida which is stable, but disease ridden.

There are many reasons for the decline of Monarchs, but it is mainly due to 3 things.

1. Climate change

- The Western population has been decimated by unprecedented heat, and the mega drought in the West.

- Eastern Monarchs have been affected by unprecedented freeze events in Mexico where they overwinter.

Monarchs over-winter in a concentrated area.

So any unusual weather event in that area can have devastating consequences. In 2003, 250 million Monarchs were killed by a single unprecedented freeze event. That is more than five times the current population (45 million).

*All it takes is the loss of one generation and the chain is broken, game over, forever.

2. Deforestation of their Winter habitats

For the Eastern Monarch, the main problem is illegal logging in Mexico. Overwintering Monarchs huddle around the large fir trees in the old growth forest and draw heat from them. Only 2% of the old growth Oyamel (Sacred) fir forest remains, on just 12 mountain tops.

3. Decline of Milkweed plants here in the Midwest

Also due to multiple factors, but mainly increased Herbicide use. Milkweed decline started in the Sixties with increasing use of herbicides. With widespread adoption of Roundup Ready crops, MW has disappeared from crop land.

This is reflected in the Monarch population graph. Notice the dramatic 68% drop in 1997, that is when Roundup Ready crops hit the big time. And they have not recovered.

The amount of Roundup applied on crop fields since 1991 (data from the US Geological Survey).

Today 92% of corn and 94% of soybean fields are GM herbicide resistant.

Roundup kills nearly every plant it touches.

“Nearly” every plant, because some plants have evolved resistance to Roundup. Pigweed is the prime example

Now Dicamba and/or 2,4 D are applied to kill Roundup resistant weeds. So crop fields are getting double or triple dosed with herbicide.

Yet the pigweed is still winning, K-State researchers have found pigweed resistant to all 3 herbicides (and more).

The reality is, there is zero chance that a Monarch butterfly will find a Milkweed in or around a crop field.

This is why we have to help Monarchs by planting Milkweed.

We are ideally situated here in Clinton County.

We are on the northern edge of the spring migration, and the heart of the summer breeding area.

We can make an impact here.

I-35 runs directly down the middle of the central flyway of Monarch spring and fall migration.

In 2016, I-35 was designated the Monarch Highway by the Federal Highway Administration.

This symbolic highway was a Federal effort to encourage states to increase conservation actions and stimulate habitat restoration efforts throughout the central flyway.

All states on the route have been actively working on projects except one – Missouri.

Missouri is still in the planning stages, so it’s up to us to do something now before it’s too late.

These pictures are of a fall Monarch migration roost right here in Plattsburg.

Dr. Paul Terry took these photos in 2010, behind the Animal Clinic here in Plattsburg.

Migrating Monarchs are gliders. They hitch rides on thermals.

Glider pilots have reported seeing Monarchs flying at 10,000 feet.

Because they are gliders, they basically go wherever the wind takes them. They rarely roost in same place.

If you are lucky enough to witness a Monarch roost, it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

We don't want to lose this! This is something that happens nowhere else on the planet, and it’s right here in our backyard.

Homegrown National Park

A grassroots call-to-action started by Doug Tallamy, professor of entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware. “In the past we have asked one thing of our gardens, that they be pretty. Now they have to support life”

MISSION:

To regenerate biodiversity and ecosystem function by planting native plants because every human being on this planet needs diverse productive ecosystems to survive.

The GOAL of Homegrown National Park is 20 million acres of native plantings in the U.S. This represents approximately one-half of the green lawns on privately-owned properties, that's you and me.

There's little we can do about the dead zones created by industrial agriculture's chemical warfare.

But we can do something about the dead zones that we've created in our own turf grass lawns.

Leave the white clover and the violets and the plantains in your yard, let them grow and support life.

And plant natives. Find a sunny corner in your yard and plant milkweed, asters, coneflowers, zinnias, etc.

We can do this!